Health professionals say TPPA risks climate and health protection

OraTaiao: The New Zealand Climate and Health Council warns that negotiations over the TransPacificPartnership Agreement (TPPA) threaten New Zealand’s ability to protect our climate andhealth.

The Council’s ongoing concerns are voiced in an article in NZ Doctor online today, together with 9other health professional groups representing doctors, nurses, midwives, medical students,academics and health promoters.

The biggest threat is the ‘Investor State Dispute Settlement’ (ISDS) provisions. This mechanismallows overseas companies, including fossil fuel companies, to sue our Government if local lawchanges to bring down greenhouse gas emissions might affect their value or profits.This is happening overseas already, for example, in Germany where measures to reduce thedamaging effects of carbon dioxide emissions from a coal-fired power plant have been subject to aninvestment dispute.

‘Climate change is already contributing to the global burden of disease and premature death, withworse to come’ says Dr Alex Macmillan of OraTaiao: The NZ Climate and Health Council. ‘Climatechange is a health threat for all New Zealanders, with Māori, Pacific people, children, the elderly,and low income groups likely to be the hardest hit’.

‘For a just transition to a low emissions economy, we need to put people’s health first – not theprofits of overseas companies. New Zealand needs to remain a free democracy to protect ourclimate, our health, our country and our future’ Dr Macmillan ends.

ENDS

Media Spokesperson: Dr Alex Macmillan, Mob. 021 322 625

Alex Macmillan (alex.macmillan@otago.ac.nz) is a Public Health Physician and Senior Lecturer at theUniversity of Otago and Co-Convenor of OraTaiao: The New Zealand Climate and Health Council.

OraTaiao: The New Zealand Climate and Health Council comprises senior doctors and other healthprofessionals concerned with climate change as a serious public health threat. They also promotethe positive health gains that can be achieved through action to address climate change. See:www.orataiao.org.nzAbout Climate Change and Health

Climate and health information is available in the New Zealand College of Public Health Medicine’spolicy statement on climate change:http://www.nzcphm.org.nz/media/67575/2013_11_6_climate_change_substantive_policy__finalcorrected_.pdf